National pride was a key factor in the German people’s indifference to or participation in state-sponsored genocide and murder. There are five main reasons why. Jews were among those blamed by German military officers looking for excuses as to why Germany was defeated in WWI, and thus were linked to the loss of national pride. Jews were seen as bringing down the economy by taking up space and manipulating other Germans into giving the Jews their money to fuel the Jews’ inherent greed. Hitler had helped to create national and cultural unity in Germany which included strong feelings of anti-Semitism at its base. Jews were generally seen as inferior and impure genetically so improving one’s nation would include removing them. Finally, due to intense national pride, many Germans may have felt simply that anything their country and their leadership does should not be questioned because there must be a good reason behind it, even if the action their country takes is mass-slaughter and genocide.
In the aftermath of WWI, Germany was thoroughly humiliated. The propaganda put out by the German government assured its citizens that Germany was crushing its opposition- the English, French, and Americans. Germany was defeated on the field of battle, however, which caused the German people great shock. As a consequence of this defeat, on July 18, 1919, Germany was forced to sign the Treaty of Versailles, causing further emotional turmoil in Germany due to the terms of the Treaty. The Treaty forced the German army to surrender their armaments and topped it off with massive financial penalties which greatly damaged the German economy. The German commanders quickly claimed it was not their fault, but the Jews, communists, and left-wing politicians ...
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...le in the German people’s participation or indifference in regard to genocide. Due to the paranoia and blame throwing of German leaders, the Jews were linked to many events that hurt the national pride of the Germans. German national pride also led to a view of Jews as inferior, inhuman beings compared to the German “Master Aryan race,” and the national and cultural unity against the Jews that Hitler assisted in creating also strengthened German pride. National pride also blinded Germans to the atrocities committed by the Nazi Party against minorities, mainly the Jews, and even made the Germans feel these acts were necessary to Germany’s survival.
Works Cited
http://www.projetaladin.org/holocaust/en/history-of-the-holocaust-shoah/the-roots-of-the-holocaust.html http://web.mnstate.edu/shoptaug/AntiFrames.htm http://www.fcit.usf.edu/Holocaust/timeline/nazifica.htm
“All propaganda has to be popular and has to accommodate itself to the comprehension of the least intelligent of those whom it seeks to reach,” Adolf Hitler (The National World War Museum). The German Nazi dictator utilized his power over the people using propaganda, eventually creating a sense of hatred towards Jews. After World War 1, the punishments of the League of Nations caused Germany to suffer. The Nazi party came to blame the Jews in order to have a nation-wide “scapegoat”. This hatred and prejudice towards Jews is known as anti-semitism. According to the Breman Museum, “the Nazi Party was one of the first political movements to take full advantage of mass communications technologies: radio, recorded sound, film, and the printed word” (The Breman Museum). By publishing books, releasing movies and holding campaigns against Jews, antisemitism came to grow quickly, spreading all across Germany. The Nazi Party often referred to the notion of a “People’s Community” where all of Germany was “racially pure” (Issuu). They would show images of ‘pure’, blond workers, labouring to build a new society. This appealed greatly to people who were demoralized during Germany’s defeat in World War 1 and the economic depression of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Hitler, along with Joseph Goebbels, used developed propaganda methods in order to suppress the Jews and spread anti semitism.
In conclusion, there were many groups besides the Jews that became victims to the persecution and murder by the Nazis. There were motivations in creating a master race, and occupying new land to create space for the German people, protecting and watching out for any political parties or cultures that may have gone against Hitler or damaged his master race, and he wanted to rid his country of those unhelpful to it or going against religious traditions.
Hitler blamed the Jews for the evils of the world. He believed a democracy would lead to communism. Therefore, in Hitler’s eyes, a dictatorship was the only way to save Germany from the threats of communism and Jewish treason. The Program of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party was the instrument for the Nazis to convince the German people to put Hitler into power. Point one of the document states, “We demand the union of all Germans in a great Germany on the basis of the principle of self-determination of all peoples.” 1 This point explicates the Nazi proposition that Germany will only contain German citizens and also, that these citizens would display his or her self-determination towards Germany to the fullest.
After The Great depression and World War I, Germany was left in a fragile state. The economy was ruined, many people were unemployed and all hope was lost. The Nazis believed it wasn’t their own fault for the mess, but those who were inferior to the German people. These Nazi beliefs lead to and resulted in cruelty and suffering for the Jewish people. The Nazis wanted to purify Germany and put an end to all the inferior races, including Jews because they considered them a race. They set up concentration camps, where Jews and other inferior races were put into hard labor and murdered. They did this because Nazis believed that they were the only ones that belonged in Germany because they were pure Germans. This is the beginning of World War 2. The Nazi beliefs that led to and resulted in the cruelty and suffering of the Jewish people
After World War I, there was a spiritual void left within the people of Germany. The outcome of the war had ripped the German society along the class lines causing great stress and tension among the people. The people of Germany had believed all along that they were winning the war, and therefore the news of surrender came as a great shock to them. To make things worse, the peace treaty established placed the entire fault of the war on Germany and left them responsible for paying for the costs of the war for all who were involved. This sparked a conflict between the middle and working classes in society. Then, the depression followed, creating even more unhappiness among the people. With all of this unhappiness because of the class divisions and the depression, the Nazi...
Synopsis – Hitler’s Willing Executioners is a work that may change our understanding of the Holocaust and of Germany during the Nazi period. Daniel Goldhagen has revisited a question that history has come to treat as settled, and his researches have led him to the inescapable conclusion that none of the established answers holds true. Drawing on materials either unexplored or neglected by previous scholars, Goldhagen presents new evidence to show that many beliefs about the killers are fallacies. They were not primarily SS men or Nazi Party members, but perfectly ordinary Germans from all walks of life, men who brutalized and murdered Jews both willingly and zealously. “They acted as they did because of a widespread, profound, unquestioned, and virulent anti-Semitism that led them to regard the Jews as a demonic enemy whose extermination was not only necessary but also just.”1 The author proposes to show that the phenomenon of German anti-Semitism was already deep-rooted and pervasive in German society before Hitler came to power, and that there was a widely shared view that the Jews ought to be eliminated in some way from German society. When Hitler chose mass extermination as the only final solution, he was easily able to enlist vast numbers of Germans to carry it out.
After Germany lost World War I, it was in a national state of humiliation. Their economy was in the drain, and they had their hands full paying for the reparations from the war. Then a man named Adolf Hitler rose to the position of Chancellor and realized his potential to inspire people to follow. Hitler promised the people of Germany a new age; an age of prosperity with the country back as a superpower in Europe. Hitler had a vision, and this vision was that not only the country be dominant in a political sense, but that his ‘perfect race’, the ‘Aryans,’ would be dominant in a cultural sense. His steps to achieving his goal came in the form of the Holocaust. The most well known victims of the Holocaust were of course, the Jews. However, approximately 11 million people were killed in the holocaust, and of those, there were only 6 million Jews killed. The other 5 million people were the Gypsies, Pols, Political Dissidents, Handicapped, Jehovah’s witnesses, Homosexuals and even those of African-German descent. Those who were believed to be enemies of the state were sent to camps where they were worked or starved to death.
Many religious conflicts are built from bigotry; however, only few will forever have an imprint on the world’s history. While some may leave a smear on the world’s past, some – like the homicide of Semitic people – may leave a scar. The Holocaust, closely tied to World War II, was a devastating and systematic persecution of millions of Jews by the Nazi regime and allies. Hitler, an anti-Semitic leader of the Nazis, believed that the Jewish race made the Aryan race impure. The Nazis did all in their power to annihilate the followers of Judaism, while the Jews attempted to rebel, rioted against the government, and united as one. Furthermore, the genocide had many social science factors that caused the opposition between the Jews and Nazis. Both the German economy and the Nuremberg Laws stimulated the Holocaust; nevertheless, a majority of the Nazis’ and Hitler’s actions towards Jews were because of the victims’ ethnicity.
In addition, having lost the war, the humiliated Germans were forced by the Allies to sign the Treaty of Versailles in 1919 that officially ended World War I. According to the harsh terms of the treaty, Germany had to hand over many of its richest industrial territories to the victors, and was made to pay reparations to the Allied countries it devastated during the war. Germany lost its pride, prestige, wealth, power, and the status of being one of Europe's greatest nations. (Resnick p. 15)
After the Treaty of Versailles was forced upon the Germans, there were several challenges the Germans had to deal with. Some examples of the cost of the war to Germany was the forfeiting or giving back of land, its coal mines productions were given to France for a 15 year span, and Germany had to limit its army to 100,000 men with its forces not allowed around the French border. In addition to all of this, Germany was forced to accept war guilt as having been solely responsible for World War I. This had a crippling effect on Germany as they did not believe they had really caused or had lost the war. The bitterness from humiliation as well as the poverty this treaty bestowed upon the people was too much for Germany. This would lead to World War II in later years. Adolf Hitler had a plan to handle these problems that the Germans faced as a result of the war. It is probably best described as National Socialism.
...er of dividing and attacking his enemies one by one. He would win over people with tempting promises. In conclusion Racism,National pride and peer pressure played a major role in the German peoples participation in or indifference’s towards the state-sponsored genocide and murders in Germany.
By looking at The Dog in the Wood, we can see that the treatment of Germans after World War II was unfair. The people of Germany after the war were beaten, stolen from, raped, put in refugee camps, and were forced to deal with many other hardships. They had to learn to deal with the consequences presented before them, so they could retain their culture. This is important because an entire way of life was being torn apart and was being replaced against the peoples’ will.
Anti-Semitism, a hatred of Jews, has been present for centuries in many places. However, the term ‘Anti-Semitism’ itself only came into use in the nineteenth century, and along with it came an ideology which fuelled this deep psychological hatred to develop into a political movement which culminated in Nazism. Throughout history, the reasons for Anti-Semitism have differed and in Imperial Germany, it was a combination of religious, racial and political factors which led to such hostility toward Jews. However, the economic state of the nation is often thought to be the main reason behind the way in which Jews were treated during this period.
At the end of World War One, Germany was required to pay a large sum of money to the Allies consequently resulting in the German Depression. The sum Germany had to pay was set after the Treaty of Versailles was enacted at approximately six billion, six hundred million – twenty-two billion pounds, (World War Two – Causes, Alan Hall, 2010). The large amount of reparations that Germany had to pay resulted in a depression and angered the Germans because they thought it was an excessive amount of money to pay, (World War Two – Causes) The Germans hatred of the Treaty of Versailles was of significant importance in propelling the Nazis to power. Germany could not pay their reparations and was forced into a depression, (World War II – Causes). The Treaty of Versailles deprived Germany of its economic production and its available employments, (World War II – Causes). The German Depr...
...itory. Germany was left weak in every aspect. The people of Germany were left emotionally disconnected, which was why Adolf Hitler was able to easily preach his ideas. The unjust treatment towards Germany was a cause of World War II. This was something far worse than World War I, which was unimaginable at the time.